The Legacy of Jack Darby : Arcee
by Prander
Summary: The second in a series of prequels to The Legacy of Jack Darby. I would ask that you read The Legacy of Jack Darby before hand so that this story makes sense. Thanks for the feedback and reviews and please check out my profile or forum for a personal thank you. :)


Arcee hated running.

There wasn't to much else in the galaxy that she loathed more than being made to run. As she raced on she fumed with indignation.

It wasn't the physical act of running, no, but being forced to turn tail in the face of the enemy.

Withdraw, retreat, pull back...it was all the same to her.

Runnin' for it.

But then what was that old Earth saying? Discretion is the better part of valor?

She hated being made to run...but then she wasn't too keen on dying either.

**ooo**

Arcee glanced over her shoulder as she ran under the merciless light of the noon day sun. The dull reds and oranges of the scattered mesas of Nevada shimmered with heat but this did nothing to slow the eight Bio-Terrors chasing her. They came after her pell-mell, screeching with delight and leaping blithely over rocks and dry creek beds as if for the sheer delight of it. All the while gaining on her, closing in around her, keening in machine-mad lust for her impending death.

Her armored boots churned up tough divots of hard baked clay as she pounded ahead for all she was worth. It was all she could do to stay just ahead of them.

She poured on a fresh burst of speed, running so fast she risked tripping herself up. She knew this was a race she would eventually loose and while not overly scared, she was feeling pretty grim. If she could just get into one of those valleys, back amongst the twists and turns she knew so well, she might find a chance to loose them. Maybe even a place to hide. For she was out-gunned here and she knew it.

A Bio-Terror had ambushed her while traveling in vehicle mode. How the wretched thing had timed it so well she would never know, but it had reared up out of the loose sand and tore her back wheel from her chassis, flipping her through the air.

She had screamed in shock, pain and anger and had transformed before she hit the ground, turning to face her attacker who shook her shredded wheel in his teeth like a dog with a chew toy rather than finish her off.

He had been just inches from hobbling her. He wouldn't get a second chance.

She supposed she should be grateful. He had been to eager. To hasty. And had sprung the ambush to soon, if the sounds of the others were anything to judge by.

So for thirty minutes Arcee had ran and every minute the Bio-Terrors were a foot closer.

She risked another look back over her other shoulder.

This death race wasn't giving her a chance to spot the Bio-Terror that was undoubtedly jamming her com-signal. She couldn't pick out the heavy backpack or the antenna but it had to be one of the four males keeping pace with her. They were marginally slower but just that much more stronger than the females and they made light of armor and equipment.

Wouldn't matter which ones tore her apart if she slowed down for a better look, though.

Her control slipped a little as she raced on.

"Damn this_ fucking _war! Damn everything!" She cried to the uncaring rocks whipping past her.

Arcee spirit was indomitable, but in these passing years she had grown grim from what could only be called a survivors guilt. Before the War had reached earth, it had been her curse to watch those close to her die. Always and forever she was plagued by the deaths of her partners and then the war on earth made it even _more_ unbearable to face loss.

And she hadn't thought that was possible.

For it occurred to her that before all this, she had always believed they would win. Never questioned it. Until Knock-Out had changed everything with his mad science. Optimus had been rife with indecision for the Bio-Terrors were also the victims in his eyes.

It had all but ruined their relationship when Arcee finally took it upon herself to use lethal means when fighting back, arguing they wouldn't live long enough to stop Knock-Out any other way.

Prime had no choice either, really, and he had seemed to die inside long before the day he actually vanished during an ambush.

It was then that Arcee realized they had lost. _Really _lost. That each one of her friends and family who had gone before her was just a long line towards her own inevitable end. And her curse was that she would be there to see them all go down before oblivion finally reached out claimed her.

So many dead.

But she wouldn't lay down to it. She couldn't. No matter what the odds, she would fight to the bitter end. It was one of the last few things that she could call her own.

Arcee was a tough, fast, ball-breaking bitch.

She would _not_ go quietly.

But the injustice of it all seared her Transformer's soul and in that moment her heart swelled with emotion when she thought of Jack.

Thank Primus he hadn't been along for the ride.

Whatever happened out here, she hoped he wouldn't be the one to find her.

**ooo**

"I _can't_ go any faster!" Ratchet spat out in anguish.

Jack bit his lip and tightened his grip on the wheel. He and Ratchet flew down the old highway.

It had been a fluke anyway that they picked up Arcee's garbled transmission and managed to triangulate...but after that? What was there to be done? Who was there to send? These days they were beyond depleted in terms of fighting potential. The last human and Autobot counterparts were hunted shadows of their former selves, capable of only a running battle for survival, to say nothing of striking back at Knock-Out and his legions.

Prime was lost, as was the land-bridge. Fowler was dead. Most of the human militaries shattered and the environment scorched. Whole armies slaughtered and cities smashed as the nightmare that was the Bio-Terrors swept everything away before them.

They'd been bled white. There was nothing left to be done. All save for some careful consolidation...but those plans were hardly in place to be of any good out here today.

Jack's guts twisted up.

"We've _got _to get to her." he said in a low voice, his mind racing.

If anything, he could at least die _with _her.

His chest ached and the ends of his fingers were strangely cold. Fear, worry, stress and heartache he supposed. His mom had warned him that it was all ruining his health. That it would all catch up to him one day.

Ratchet said nothing.

There was a time that Ratchet had been beyond inconsolable and only the bond he had formed with Jack kept him from going over the edge. Indeed, Jack had become the heart and soul of all the small team that was left. But right now Ratchet knew they were probably only going to be in time to retrieve Arcee's body.

If Jack on the other hand allowed himself to admit that, his spirit might go out like a candle.

"Jack..." he began.

"Don't say it. You can do just one thing for me Ratchet and that's get me to her. I just can't write her off."

"I would never ask you too!"

"Then _don't_ tell me to calm down. Don't tell me it's going to be ok. It's never going to be ok. And I haven't been calm in ten years."

Ratchet raced on. What more could he say?

He studied Jack thoughtfully as he drove.

**ooo**

Arcee slammed back against the canyon wall, the female Bio-Terror screeching in delight as she waded in with flashing claws.

Desperate, Arcee seized the side of her enemies head and wrenched it around with all her might, cracking the neck with a wet snap.

The female went into convulsions, her body rebelling at the catastrophic damage but refusing to die. Automated systems took over and her limbs, horribly, fought on.

Arcee popped her blasters and slammed them up against the Bio-Terror's midsection and blew her apart, flinging the body away from her.

She gasped as she wiped the gore off her face and looked around.

She had only minutes, maybe seconds, before the others found her.

This had been the fastest one. A lean blur of motion that had raced ahead of the others and doggedly ran Arcee down when she had managed to get back among the rocks in a shallow valley filled with overhangs, house sized boulders and deep craggy paths.

She had lost them for a moment but it wouldn't last.

Even now as she looked up, sheltered here in shadow, she could hear the others coming, spreading out and closing in. Undoubtedly some of them were above her now.

Their voices wailed in the air, bouncing and echoing around her off the canyon walls above, adding to the chaos.

She bent down and slid the long wicked dagger free from the Bio-Terror's hip sheath.

The female had opted to try and rip her apart with her claws and Arcee was covered in gashes and scrapes, her blue armor down to bare metal in some places.

She continued down the path she had chose, trying to recall every detail of this particular place. If memory served, just around this bend the ground opened up into a small hollow of broken rock and sand that led out into the desert open again.

If she had scattered her attackers long enough, she could try and gain some distance on them out in the dunes because the Bio-Terrors were hampered by loose sand more than she was. Chasing her across a dry lake bed was one thing, out in the dunes she might have a chance.

With extreme relief she saw that she had guessed right for as she cleared the last turn it was indeed the small hollow she remembered. That path right there would lead out into the rolling dunes below.

Then two Bio-Terrors jumped down into the hollow, their backs to her.

A male and female. They glistened with grim and sweat in the bright sun as Arcee hastily slid back into the shadows.

They had gotten ahead of her, going up over the maze of turns and cutting her off at the valleys edge while the others hunted her.

In one heartbeat she made her choice and Arcee tore out of her hiding place in a silent mad rush.

They heard her coming but only managed to turn in time to face her attack.

For the male, Arcee rammed the dagger right through him, a deep satisfying punch that burst apart his multi-chambered heart, the blade coming out his back, killing him instantly and shorting out his bio-electronics. For good measure Arcee kicked off from his chest as he toppled over to the side, launching herself at the female.

The female screamed in rage upon seeing her and had raised her claws high.

That was her mistake.

With one all-or-nothing swing of her leg, she brought the armored spike of her knee up under the chin of the females exposed head, obliterating her face and nearly decapitating her.

She bore the female down with her own weight, using the momentum to roll free of the tangle and skidding to a stop on her hands and knees. The female convulsed madly in the sand but then grew still with an electronic gurgle.

"Two for two, bitch." Arcee snarled in triumph.

To her amazement her com-signal suddenly blinked into life on her hip. She gaped at it in surprise.

"...u there? Can you hear me?" Jack's voice crackled in her ears. She had never heard anything sweeter.

She looked up over at the male where he lay on his side and sure enough, he carried a thick armored backpack with a long flexible antenna. The tip of her borrowed knife was poking out through the back, sparking and smoking as the whole works finished shorting out.

"Well I'll be damned." Arcee said as she stood up.

She was just reaching for the com-signal when the remaining five Bio-Terrors came up around the edges of the hollow above her, surrounding her.

Arcee looked up, a cold chill running through her.

"Oh, scrap."

**ooo**

"What the hell? Not again!" Jack cried.

"She was just there! I got a clear return! Where did she go?" He cried.

"Lock it down!" Ratchet barked.

Already ahead of him, it Jack took three eternal seconds to do just that, his hands a blur across the set's controls.

"East!" He cried. "Forty six point three!"

Without a word Ratchet left the road, roaring down into the sand and racing on, leaving a high tail of dust behind him.

Jack's heart pounded in his ears as he fiddled with the set more, trying to cut through the static as he hefted the transmitter up to his mouth with an unsteady hand.

"Fifteen minutes. Just hold on. Can you hear me?!" He cried.

Only static answered him.

"Are you there?"

**ooo**

Arcee dropped the crushed com-signal into the sand and glared up at the Bio-Terrors. Her amazement had turned to cold terror when she realized that she was trapped and after a moments calculation of her own, she also realized Jack was less than twenty minutes away.

She had always been one to act firmly and without hesitation. It had always been her way. The way she had lived her life and fought her war and while sometimes she had been a little rash, she didn't even need to think about this one.

There was no way she was going to guide Jack straight into this mess so he could die with her.

And she surely didn't want these sadistic monsters to turn on her com-signal so he could listen in to what they were about to do to her.

So when the shadows of the Bio-Terrors fell over her from above, she crushed her com-signal in her fist rather than speak into it. Then she walked out into the sun.

It had been nothing short of a miracle to hear his voice, if just for a moment...and to know that he was close.

It was probably the last warm feeling she was ever going to have.

"Well come at me if you're coming, damn you." She snarled up at the big one.

The large male sneered at her, the other Bio-Terrors obviously waiting for their cue.

He made a small gesture and they all started jumping down into the hollow, Arcee at their center. Only then did the alpha-male slide his gore encrusted cleaver free of it's sheath and then he too came down into the hollow.

Or rather he climbed down. Taking his time and picking his moment, his predator's eyes never leaving hers.

His filed teeth gleamed with anticipation.

Despite herself, Arcee felt a wave of sadness come over her.

_So this was how it was going to end._

Earlier all she could hope for was that Jack wouldn't be the one to find her if she fell out here today...and now things were shaping up to turn out just that way. She had to smile though, picturing him in her mind during happier times.

He wouldn't give up on her. He was on his way even now.

Jack Darby. The smallest partner she ever had but the one with the biggest heart.

But then a chill gripped her as she realized there could be Bio-Terror's waiting for him once they were done with her.

And if he was racing towards her even now with no thought of his own safety, at least she could make sure there were no surprises for him when he got here.

Any concern for her own survival left Arcee then, as did her sorrow. She stood there tall and proud and indomitable.

This was the way it had to be.

_Ah, my dear Jack. You can't share this one with me, partner._

As if sensing the change in her, the alpha-male frowned slightly.

Arcee was a tough, fast, ball-breaking bitch.

She would _never_ go quietly.

**ooo**

Jack Darby smelled the rich stink of Bio-Terror in the air, like bad milk, before he saw any other signs of battle.

He didn't care, he just raced ahead heedless of his own safety even as Ratchet called out to him to wait. He clutched his only weapon in his fists, determined to do what he could.

But though he had no sensors and was already wheezing like a blast furnace from his run, something led him unerringly through the twists and turns in the rock and straight into the hollow.

There are..._things_ you see that will forever burn themselves into your minds eye. Things that time will not heal. A bruise on your whole being that never dulls with age, but seems to horribly grow clearer as you torture yourself by playing it over and over again in the coming years. Each wretched detail in fine relief as if you saw it for the first time every day you wake up after this one.

Jack Darby stumbled upon such a scene, his t-shirt clinging to his frame and out of breath.

It was the only thing that kept him from screaming.

The alpha-male Bio-Terror, the last one alive, was bent over what remained of Arcee, pinning her body back over a rock and systematically chopping her apart with a great cleaver.

His reared up and spun around when he heard Jack's sick groan.

One eye was a red pulp, a deep blaster hole cauterized into his chest and a dagger buried in his thigh unnoticed. A testimony that it hadn't all gone his way.

"Where did you come from?" He sneered as the human slowly looked up at him in absolute horror.

Jack knew Bio-Terror's could speak. At least the pack-leaders and alpha's could. This one's face glowed with a sickly intelligence beyond the norm as it hunted for just the right words to mock Jack.

Mock his humanity.

"Just in time for supper." It intended to laugh at it's own wit, salting the wound before it tore the puny human apart and consumed him.

But then it noticed Jack Darby's only weapon was a flame-thrower.

And then the human hosed him down with a wash of flame.

**ooo**

Ratchet came into the hollow not a moment later, prepared for the worst and finding it. The hollow was awash with heat as Jack drove the last Bio-Terror back into a corner and immolated it.

"Stop it!" Ratchet cried over the roar of flames.

"Stop!" He came forward, afraid Jack would hurt himself but the weapon sputtered miserably and coughed it's last even as he reach for it in Jack's hands.

Jack let it drop into the sand then and with a world weary slump, went down on his knees and stayed there, his head bent low.

The Bio-Terror crackled and popped as it burned, the stench over-powering but Jack didn't even flinch.

Ratchet blinked and turned from him, seeing Arcee and wincing at the carnage that must have taken place here.

For only a nano-second he stood still, but then he summoned up some resolve from somewhere inside himself and in that moment he made his decision.

Sparing Jack a glance he quickly went over to Arcee and a moment later had his second answer. Slipping free some preciously hoarded tech, he set about doing what he could.

The only thing he _could_ do now.

From somewhere in his numbed brain, Jack must have noticed and he looked over at Ratchet after a moment with a dull expression, his face flash-burnt and running with sweat and soot.

"What are you..." was all he could mumble with a shake of his head.

Long had Ratchet thought on this and long had he delayed the day but now more than ever he knew Jack Darby was the key he needed for his last desperate plan. And sadly, Arcee had now provided him with a candidate.

"Come over here!" He snapped, his voice harkening back to the days where he once had to fuss over three human children.

"I need your help."

Jack stood up automatically, but his eyes were dull with pain and horror.

"What are you doing?" he finally managed.

Ratchet turned to eye him. The die was cast now and whether he knew it or not, Jack Darby still had much to do. Ratchet would see to that.

For some time now, a loose plan he and Jack had nurtured had slowly taken shape over the years and was close to fruition. A last chance at turning the tide. With carefully hoarded stockpiles of arms and armor. Fuel. Ammunition. The remnants of human militaries still combat worthy having consolidated into one fighting force. Their continuing work to rebuild Bumblebee into a Guardian.

All of it the basis for a last resistance.

But Ratchet had known all along it wouldn't be enough and had thought long and hard over how to properly execute an idea he had kept to himself all this time.

Now, faced with Arcee's death, he realized that this human was inextricably tied to the outcome and may be the only being on this world capable of pulling it off.

Arcee death would be the driving force behind it, and Ratchet's stolen tech would make it possible.

Ignoring his own conscience for the sake of this world, Ratchet instead focused on bringing Jack Darby back from the brink.

As he had once done for Ratchet himself.

Jack had taken a few steps towards him now, wincing at Arcee's devastated body but then he couldn't help but notice what Ratchet was doing.

"Is she...alive?" He asked despite what his eyes told him.

"Not exactly. Come on, I need your help." Ratchet went back to work.

Jack came over and dropped down next to the compact tools Ratchet had laid out. No. Not Arcee. There was no way anyone could survive such horror. He couldn't watch. He buried his face in his hands.

"Snap out of it! I need you to keep it together! Look here at what I am doing."

"Is that a life-support unit?" Jack blinked as he looked up, trying to find something to hold on to and groping around for something, anything.

"We have to work fast. There may be more Bio-Terrors about and we need to get this back to base."

"Where did you get that? Can it save her?"

The rising note of hope in his voice tore at Ratchet but he held firm.

"Jack Darby, I promise you I'll tell you everything you need to know. An idea I've had for some time and well...now is the time to act. There'll be years yet to understand. If you're willing."

He connected two cables into Arcee's eviscerated torso, shoving tools into Jack's hands and noting that some life had crept back into his eyes.

'That's good. Come on now, help me. There's a chance here."

"A chance for what?" Jack swallowed hard, sitting up on his knees and bracing himself, ready to help.

Ratchet kept at his grisly work a moment longer before he answered.

"You'll find out."


End file.
